The Great Escape 2012 (UK)

Since being founded in 2006, The Great Escape has been firmly established internationally as the leading event for showcasing new music. Taking place in Brighton over 3 days in May, The Great Escape kick starts the festival season, introducing 15,000 music lovers to the key artists and sounds of the year. With over 300 bands playing in 30 venues over 3 days, The Great Escape is the key date in the music calendar. In addition to pre-publicised performances, impromptu street gigs spring up all over town. The Alternative Escape, numerous club nights, label parties, industry showcases, unique collaborations and outdoor gigs all add to the festivities.

One member from each selected band will get a delegates pass (access to the Convention and priority access to the gigs).

Previous artist include:

2006: Bat For Lashes, British Sea Power, The Cribs, The Fratellis, The Futureheads, Get Cape, Wear Cape, Fly, The Gossip, Guillemots, Holy Fuck, Hot Club De Paris, Klaxons, The Kooks, The Maccabees, Midlake, Mystery Jets, Paulo Nutini, Richard Hawley and many more



2007: Adele, CSS, The Dykeenies, The Enemy, Foals, Friendly Fires, Gallows, Jack Penate, Kate Nash, Late Of The Pier, Laura Marling, Lethal Bizzle, The Magic Numbers, The Noisettes, Pigeon Detectives, Scouting For Girls, These New Puritans, The Whip and many more



2008: Beach House, Black Mountain, Bombay Bicycle Club, Bon Iver, Cage The Elephant, Crystal Castles, Example, Friendly Fires, Glasvegas, Iron & Wire, Ladyhawke, Mumford & Sons, Santigold, The Ting Tings, Vampire Weekend, Yeasayer, The Wombats, The XX and many more



2009 : Ben Kweller, Chew Lips, Dananananaykroyd, Holy Fuck, The Joy Formidable, Kasabian, Little Boots, Metronomy, Noah and The Whale, Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Patrick Wolf, School of Seven Bells, Speech Debelle, Slow Club, The Temper Trap, We Were Promised Jet Packs and many more



2010: Angus & Julia Stone, The Big Pink, Blood Red Shoes, Broken Social Scene, Chapel Club, Chase & Status, The Cribs, Crystal Castles, Darwin Deez, Delphic, Ellie Goulding, Everything Everything, Grove Armada, Marina & The Diamonds, Tinie Tempah, Warpaint, Wild Beasts and many more



2011: Anna Calvi, The Antlers, DJ Shadow, Ed Sheeran, Example, Factory Floor, Foster The People, Frank Turner, Friendly Fires, Gang Gang Dance, Oh Land, James Vincent McMorrow, The Joy Formidable, Katy B, The Naked and Famous, Sufjan Stevens, The Vaccines, Twin Shadow, Villagers, Warpaint and many more

The Great Escape Convention

A variety of insightful industry talks, panel debates, targeted networking sessions and keynote speakers run alongside the festival and is attended by over 3000 delegates annually from across the globe.

Previous speakers include:


Anthony Volodkin – Hype Machine

Barney Wragg – Ex Head of EMI Digital

Clive Dickins – Absolute Radio

Colin Greenwood – Radiohead

Daniel Ek – Spotify Founder

DJ Shadow – Artist

Eric Garland – Big Champagne

Francis Keeling – VP Digital, Universal

Howard Marks aka Mr. Nice

Ian Rogers – Topsin

John Leckie – Legendry Producer

John Niven – Novelist ‘ Kill Your Friends’

Matt Everitt – BBC 6 Music

Michael Eavis – Glastonbury Festival

Nathan Lovejoy – Limewire

Nick Kent – Author / Music Journalist

Norman Cook – aka Fat Boy Slim

Patrick Walker – Google / You Tube

Paul Epworth – Producer

Seymour Stein – Sire Records

Simon Fox – CEO HMV

Terry McBride – Nettwerk Music Group

Tony Wadsworth – BPI / Brits Trust

Will Page – PRS for Music

Testimonials:


‘Unveiling the best music from across the globe, The Great Escape is essential for discovering the hottest new talent’ -The Fly

‘There are lots of big names, but it’s the chance to see so many hotly tipped up-and-comers that makes this festival such a success’ -Independent On Sunday

‘The Great Escape’s USP is new music, so for the real spirit of things, you are best off haunting the smaller venues’ - The Guardian

‘A shed load of spanking new bands, seasoned veterans and seminars for a rock bottom ticket price. What more do you want?’ - XFM

‘Formed at a similar time and juncture to the Camden Crawl, the Great Escape’s London rival has always found it hard to match it for choice of thrills and hedonistic pleasures. Great Escape 2011 boasts churches and hotels amongst some of its more illustrious venues and the backdrop of sky-high pier rides and the four-foot seagulls make The Great Escape about nothing but pure unadulterated escapism.’ - Virtual Festivals

UK BANDS, PLEASE NOTE: We've been notified that some UK folks are having trouble with the zip code field when signing up for a new account. We're working to fix this but since the Great Escape deadline is approaching please use this workaround: When registering, enter only the first three letters or numbers in the zip code field with no spaces included. So even if the second character in your zip code is a space, skip it, and enter a third number instead. If you still have trouble, reach us at needhelp@sonicbids.com